miso

At Philly’s new V Street, the all-vegan menu is inspired by street food from around the world, fusing flavors from as far afield as Hungary, India, Peru and the Philippines into an amazing array of meat-free snacks like jerk trumpet mushrooms and harissa-grilled cauliflower mixed up with spiced avocado, olive salad and chermoula, an intensely flavorful North African marinade.

Looking for a new way to prepare dinner? Try curing! Yeah, it takes a little bit of planning and patience (like, you need to plan to do this days in advance) but once you get your ingredients it’s just a super simple waiting game. Salmon and miso go so well together in this recipe from Finn & Porter. Paired with a fresh cucumber vinaigrette, this is a light, bright meal that will turn you into a curing convert.

Miso-Cured Salmon with Cucumber Vinaigrette

As you may have noticed from my variousposts on the subject, I am in a constant state of eating down the fridge and/or cabinets. One key to doing this successfully, I have found, is to keep a few interesting ingredients on hand, lest eating down the fridge become an exercise in tedium. The ideal add-ins are shelf-stable, or at least will stay good in the fridge for six months or so. A well-stocked spice rack is a good first step. I am realizing, though, that there is a whole other category of these add-ins, a top shelf, if you will. A jar of capers or sundried tomatoes in oil, for example.

One way I have identified some of these premio foods-to-have-on-hand is by checking out some favorite food blogs and cookbooks and noting things that seem to pop up again and again. The latest addition to the fridge door is white miso paste, purchased at Korean Korner. My new go-to food blog, Everybody Likes Sandwiches, features it often, in everything from tofu glaze to coleslaw.

Also, once you have miso paste, making miso soup is about as hard as boiling water.

Easy Miso Soup

This tender spring veggie is celebrated in festivals across the country this time of year, but even if you can’t attend one of the many super exciting events honoring these green stalks, you can buy some really fresh right now at most farmers markets and have your own party. Asparagus is made up of vitamins E, A, and C, folate for a healthy heart and cell regeneration, and potassium, which can help lower blood pressure and cholesterol. Plus, fresh and locally grown asparagus just tastes way better than store-bought, although with the price of sand. Smart Tip: Genius neo-chef and farmer Dan Barber warns that you should blanch your farmers market asparagus before using to get it fully clean.

Just so happened my mom was having a vegan dinner party this weekend, so I offered up this dish — my tribute to the asparagus gods — and it was a hit.

A beautiful tagine has been sitting on a high-up shelf in my current kitchen for 3 years now. And I actually think it sat unused in a previous kitchen. In fact, I am so out of touch with this clay vehicle that I referred to it as a taNgine at a press lunch at J&G Steakhouse the other day. Although a fellow writer was nice enough to correct my pronunciation before I started blabbing about it in public.

I’m sure I’m not alone in sometimes feeling that the best things about Hanukkah are the potato latkes (even better than the gifts or the gelt)! Is there anything more perfect than the pairing of starchy crispy fried goodness of a hot-from-the-pan potato latke and the sweet cooling fruitiness of applesauce? Is there? This is the question I set out to answer on the second night of Hanukkah 2009. After all, what good is the culinary part of the commemoration of a struggle against oppression if we feel our creativity is chained by the bondage of how things have always been done?

Okay… really, to be absolutely truthful, I didn’t set out to make a political statement with my cooking this Hanukkah. It was actually Gansie who inspired me to play with the traditional Hanukkah fare: When I told Gansie that I was going to my parents’ house to make potato latkes, her first reaction was, “Any interesting dipping sauces you’re going to try?”

Well… I hadn’t thought on that… because why mess with perfection? But this is ES, and at ES we are nothing if not experimenters (and no, I wasn’t tempted to throw a fried egg on them, eat latkes ala Gansie and call it a day).

As Hanukkah came early this year, and Thanksgiving was still very much at the tip of my palate, I thought to inject the holiday with something slightly reminiscent of T-day flavor.